


You're the Flood That Opened My Heart

by fotoshop_cutout



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, God!Lance, Lance (Voltron) is a God, M/M, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, ocean god lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2019-10-28 08:48:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17784281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fotoshop_cutout/pseuds/fotoshop_cutout
Summary: And suddenly, he remembers: it's like opening his eyes to the first light of day. He remembers the power he holds in just his pinky finger; he remembers how his father shunned him for liking humanity too much, and how he cast him out. He remembers the power his waves once had. How had he ever forgotten?He grits his teeth and opens his eyes to face the storm that's throwing this tiny ship around on the ocean's surface and his power swells inside of him, bursting forth as he throws his hands out to either side, fighting to quell the tempest raging around him.---In other words, Lance is an Ocean God who finds his power along the way after its been long forgotten.





	1. I'll Find You

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This may not be updated as often as you or I would like it to be. However, this story has been eating at me and I finally had to begin writing it. Unfortunately, I have other obligations that do come first.  
> 2\. I have plans for this to go places. Here's to hoping I can make that happen.  
> 3\. This idea came up on the Dreamwidth Voltron Kink Meme, but I have since lost where it was. However, this is my answer to it.  
> 4\. This will qualify as "slow burn". Sorry for anyone looking for explicit right away! It won't be involved for a little while.

**“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” - Wilma Rudolph**

His eyes sprung open, his breathing harsh through his parted lips as he sat up. He’d thought it had just been another nightmare, but the picture he had of himself, Pidge, and Hunk was floating just above his eye level, spinning in a slow spiral; just like his jacket was resisting the hook it was caught on, trying to make its way up to the ceiling. Lance took in a sharp breath and just as he went to reach out for the nearest object, a GAC coin that had been sitting atop his bedside table, everything came crashing back down at once.

He squeezed his eyes shut as his blanket and pillow fell where they were, his pillow bouncing harmlessly off his hunched shoulders and somehow plopping back to its original place. His blanket was a bit rumpled, but more or less on the bed. Not everything else landed perfectly, the picture frame’s corner gouging a dent into the top of the bedside table before it bounced down to lay face down on the floor. The GAC coin dropped to the floor and hit its edge, rolling beneath the bed. Lance’s chest heaved with his breaths, eyebrows knitting together as he looked around at the mess his room was in.

After his heartbeat slows and he’s not dragging in all the air he can, he scoots to the edge of the bed and reaches for the photograph first, flipping it over and finding the glass cracked. A _plink_ and a small shard has fallen to the floor, making him sigh and a frown pull at his lips. He ignores the shard for now and just puts the photo on its back on top of his table, rubbing his fingertips over the dent created by its fall. Then he goes about righting all the bits and bobs, even going so far as to tidy up the bathroom and the horrendous mess that was made by a jar of face moisturizer having shattered. Face cream with shards of colored glass in it: great for the skin. He smirked wryly at that thought and made sure to get the one piece of glass that was on the floor in his bedroom. The only thing left was the GAC that had rolled under his bed.

As he laid down on his stomach to peer under the furniture there was the trademark _blip_ that acted as a doorbell for his room. It was late enough in the morning by now that maybe the others had gotten worried about his lack of appearance. He stretched out his arm to reach for the GAC at the same time he tipped his head slightly to the side and called out a ‘come in’. The door slid open as he snatched the coin up and retracted his arm, glancing over toward the doorway.

Hunk raised an eyebrow as Lance stood and flipped the coin up in the air before catching it in his hand, clasping it in his hand for only a split second before pocketing it. “You missed breakfast.”

Lance frowned and glanced over at his clock, which was still face down from where it had dropped onto the table. He reached out a righted it, glad to see that, at least, wasn’t broken. “Did I? I must have overslept.”

It was a flimsy excuse that Hunk could see right through if he wanted to, but Lance just hoped he took his word for it. His best friend seemed to, and just shrugged at him, “Alright, but you should eat. Shiro was talking about doing some group training later today.”

“At least I’m well rested for it!” Lance gave a playful smile as he exited his bedroom and stepped close to the Yellow Paladin, slinging his arm across his shoulders. Hunk reached out and rapped his knuckles on Lance’s stomach, causing his abs to flex, a wrinkle on his nose forming.

“Yeah well, you know what they say about training on an empty stomach.” Hunk had a point. Lance nodded and tilted his head to the side.

“Did you make anything special, or is it food goo deluxe for breakfast?”

“Food goo deluxe. We need to stop off and get some ingredients at the next planet that isn’t invaded by the Galra.” Hunk’s face pulled into a slight frown as he answered, but Lance only nodded sagely. They wound their way around the training decks, the communal showers, and the observatory that didn’t seem to get used for anything, until they made their way to the kitchen. Lance nabbed a plate and served himself a healthy helping of food goo before seating himself at the table. No one else seemed to be there, but that may be because he was running late this morning.

After a couple of bites, he brandished the spoon in Hunk’s direction, who had grabbed a water pouch and had sat himself down on the opposite side of the table. Hunk raised his eyebrows at him, but otherwise didn’t make a sound as Lance started up. “Hey man, have you noticed anything weird with the gravity lately?”

“The gravity?” Pidge’s head poked around the corner of the doorway and Lance’s eye twitched.

“What’s up, demon child?” Lance spat at her with less venom than he might have used if he didn’t know her so well.

“I haven’t noticed anything, though I suppose I could run some diagnostics. Why, did you see something? Feel something?” Pidge continued as though Lance hadn’t spoken. She tapped at the screen of the tablet she was clutching, and Lance felt his irritation at having his conversation with Hunk interrupted melting away.

He gave a one shoulder shrug and scooped up more goo in his spoon, “Just seemed a little lighter in my room this morning, that’s all. Maybe I’m wrong.”

Pidge was giving a little frown as she worked on her tablet and then hummed at him, “Everything seems to be normal from here. If you feel it again, let me know. I can always do some monitoring of the systems closer to the rooms.”

Lance swallowed a gob of goo and nodded at her, “Will do.”

~*~

See, if this had been the first time something strange had occurred in Lance’s room, he might have made a big deal about it. And he did, the first couple of times his fingertips had been glowing a strange teal-blue. However, Coran ran all the tests and nothing came up. Worse yet, he couldn’t make it happen again. Shiro thought he was stressed and arranged for a couple of days off, which had been nice, but the strange occurrences only kept on. Stuff floating was just a different kind of weird. So Lance ruled out that it had been outside influence and had decided to stop by the library to see what it had to offer on his latest and not-so-great ability.

This wouldn’t be his first time consulting Altean texts, and it certainly wouldn’t be his last if this kept up, and since he had only begun having these things happen to him after Allura had revived him, Lance figured he could stop in and talk to either Allura herself if she wasn’t busy, or Coran to see if they had any ideas. So far all he’d found was that he could be able to control quintessence, just like Allura could. But what was the chances of that?

After breakfast, Lance headed back past the training rooms, intent on heading to the Library and Coran’s usual space, past their rooms in the other direction. However, he paused as he went to pass by the second training deck, his sixth sense telling him to swerve as the door slid open, a sweaty Keith stepping out while looking back at his weird wolf-dog thing. Lance barely turned his shoulders enough to not run smack into him, the closeness of Keith’s one shoulder radiating the heat from his workout. It took some willpower to not just suction cup himself to that warmth and not let go, but instead Lance just uttered a noise of surprise and skirted around him.

Keith’s gaze whipped around to land on him, that odd fire in his eyes until he realized who it was standing so close to him and then he relaxed, his stance shifting, “Oh, hey Lance.”

Kosmo trotted around Keith’s legs to bump into Lance’s, head tipped up in hopes of some attention. Lance knew better than to ignore a space-wolf-dog-thing, so he knelt down and buried his fingers in Kosmo’s multicolored mane. “Hey, Keith; heyyyy Kosmo, who’s the best boy in the world? Who’s the best boy, huh?”

Keith rolled his eyes at the display, crossing his arms and leaning back as he waited for the exchange to end. Lance tipped his head up after a moment to sneak a glance at Keith, noticing the sweat staining his dark gray t-shirt and just how much taller and more broad the Red Paladin had become since before he did his weird timeskip. Then he looked back down at Kosmo before Keith could catch on, Lance dropping a kiss atop Kosmo’s fluffy head before he stood back up, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Where are you headed, anyway? Back to bed?” Keith jabbed, but it wasn’t nearly as mean as he could have said it.

Lance grinned, “I do love me some beauty sleep,”

“You sure do need it.” Keith grumbled, but Lance pointedly ignored that and continued on.

“But no, I’m going to find Coran.” Then, to make sure he was getting his own pokes in, “And I trust that you’re about to take a shower? You sure do need it.”

By tossing Keith’s words back at him, Lance was rewarded with a scowl and Keith flipping him off before heading down the hall in the opposite direction Lance had been heading in. Lance just laughed as Kosmo looked between the two of them, whining. Lance withdrew his hand from his pocket, patting the top of Kosmo’s head before Keith called for him.

~*~

Coran was in the Library, just as Lance had predicted, and Lance tossed himself down into a chair, feet up and crossed on a desk as he waited for the Altean to finish up his task at hand. He was turned away from Lance, putting small pieces of tech back into drawers, and when he turned back toward the desk, his face lit up. “Lance, my boy! What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, actually. I had a couple of questions about Alteans and Quintessence.” Lance did his best to not look constipated as he informed the redheaded Altean. Allura was much more straightforward. Unfortunately, she did not have all of the information Coran seemed to have about the Alteans. Coran, for his part, jumped at the chance and sat himself in his armchair happily.

“Well then, how can I help you?” He leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest, and then must have thought that wasn’t quite right, because he uncrossed his arms and crossed his legs instead, and then gave up on all of that and leaned forward, his elbows on the desk.

Lance did his best to smother his bemused smile and just focused on what he had come here for. “I was hoping you could point me toward anything about learning to control Quintessence?”

“To control it?”

Lance gave a helpless shrug, indicating that was indeed what he was looking for. Coran took up the famous ‘thinking pose’ for a brief moment, and then he snapped his fingers, rising to his feet and pulling out a rack of what looked like digitized library cards to Lance. He started flipping through them, paused at one or two, and then finally found what he was presumably searching for. He pulled it and moved to hand it to Lance, who sat up and reached for it. As he took hold of it, Coran spoke, “I do hope that you’re not going to do anything foolish—most other species cannot control Quintessence. It might be dangerous for you to even attempt it.”

Lance nodded with wide eyes, and then he tipped his head to one side, looking inquisitive. “You know how you ran all those tests because I thought my fingers were glowing?”

Coran seemed to pause then and answered him slowly, “We didn’t find anything unusual in your scans, Lance.”

“I know,” he flashed Coran what he hoped was a reassuring smile, “I’m just trying to figure it all out. I thought this might help.”

Coran nodded and then clapped Lance on the shoulder, “Good luck, then! I hope it helps ease your mind.”

With that, Lance took the digital library card and started off through the stacks. The shelves were littered with actual books as well as tablets that seemed to be pre-loaded with certain texts, which made the Library seem a bit more empty than it might have been otherwise. There was definitely a heavier section that had to do with diplomacy and politics than Lance would have considered, otherwise there were certain sections that were more empty than Lance would have thought they would be, such as cooking and cuisine. Although, perhaps Hunk had already raided it.

~*~

It was some hours later when Lance resurfaced, a tablet in his hands as he absently dropped the index card back at Coran’s desk. The man wasn’t there currently, so Lance didn’t even bother looking up as he continued on his way to his room. He spent the remainder of his free time burying himself in the articles and books on the subject of Quintessence. He learned all sorts of stuff about it—including that what he’d seen Princess Allura do with reviving a Balmera as well as reviving him—wasn’t an easy feat at all. Most who attempted that died, and that didn’t even ensure that the other party was revived, depending on the user’s control and abilities. It _did_ , however, make him more grateful to Allura, now more than ever, for doing that for him.

When Lance finally left, he grabbed a snack at the kitchens, which were vacant (where was Hunk?) and changed into exercise clothes, intent on getting some cardio in before Shiro called for group training. He had just finished his second mile when the alarm blared, making him jump off the treadmill, tapping the emergency stop button before he rushed to get his armor on.

As he pushed his helmet on his head he got caught up with what the alarm was all about. “How many are there?”

That had been Keith, “And where’s Lance?”

“I’m right here, settle yourself Space-Man.” He grumbled into the comms.

Hunk made a small sound of exclamation followed by a “Where have you been all day, man?”

“Probably his bed.” Keith shot him down immediately, without allowing him to answer.

“The Library, actually.” Lance said lightly, not willing to explain himself more than that. Pidge scoffed.

Hunk, the blessing that he was, saved him. “That’s cool dude, but I think we’ll have to catch up later about that.”

Shiro broke in to answer the other part of Keith’s question with that smooth transition, “So far it looks like two cruisers.”

Lance bit his tongue to suppress his groan. So much for being out in the middle of nowhere near some planets that were rather neutral about the Galra invasion. It had seemed safe at the time, but now… Lance grit his teeth and sunk into his pilot’s chair, feeling Red come to life all around him as he put his hands to the controls. As he left the bay, he immediately saw the looming threat and maneuvered around so he could meet up with the others in their lions. “We have a plan for this?”

It took a moment, and then Keith spoke, “We need to take out those ion cannons first, and then we can worry about taking them down.”

“Roger.” The rest of them answered, in business mode now.

The Green Lion cloaked, and with Yellow and Red playing distraction, they easily took out the first cannon. Unfortunately, that meant that cruiser opened its cargo doors, letting out the smaller attack ships in swarms. Immediately Keith was on that, and with Hunk lending a hand they tried to keep the smaller ships from getting in the way of Pidge taking out the other cannon. Lance flew Red in evasive maneuvers, doing his best to serve as a distraction for the cruiser that still had the cannon.

That was precisely when it went to hell in a handbasket. Pidge was working on positioning herself, but she was just outside the bay doors when they began to open, the swarm ready to come out. The Green Lion wasn’t cloaked anymore, and so Lance saw she was about to get pummeled. Hunk and Keith had their hands full, and he knew he had to move. So he flew Red straight at the Green Lion, bracing for the impact he was about to receive. The front right leg of Red smashed into the Green Lion’s hindquarters, ramming Pidge out of the way just as the swarm surrounded Red.

Lance felt the sensation of spinning, even though the inertial dampeners were definitely still working. Maybe it was just the swirl of space from his overhead viewer that made him feel like that, but either way, he groaned at the spinning before he felt three successive thuds against Red’s left side. Warning sounds and red lights turned on as he heard his name yelled by what seemed like everyone. “I’m—I’m okay.”

He gasped out, but then a fourth and fifth thud came into contact and then a final, humongous blast engulfed the Red Lion. Lance felt something change—he was falling, or Red was. The comms were static-y and he wasn’t sure whether it was his overhead screen that was cracked or his visor. Either way, Lance could barely keep his eyes open as Red plummeted down to the planet that was below them.

~*~

Lance doesn’t remember the impact, but it must have been severe. When he wakes up, his armor is cracked in more than one place—and yes, that was a crack on his visor—and there was someone else inside Red’s cockpit. It was dark and he only saw a silhouette, but he wanted to think it was Keith, coming to get him. He didn’t stay awake for long that time.

The next time he woke up he was shivering and armor-less in a bed with a scratchy blanket thrown on top of him. The room was moving, swaying, and there were voices outside. It was around this time that Lance realized that he hadn’t been saved by Keith, nor anyone else from Voltron for that matter—he was on a ship on top of _water_.


	2. Won't You Help Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance makes a first impression. Keith goes for a swim.

**“The gods too are fond of a joke.” - Aristotle**

He shuffled over to the small cracked and cloudy mirror that was fastened to a post in the middle of the swaying room, ducking slightly to peer at his face. It felt stretched and achy—and he found out why: his left eye was one large bruise, puffy and obviously a relatively new injury, his lips were split on that side as well, blood having sealed over the line. Lance grimaced. So much much for being a pretty boy. He reached up to poke at these injuries when the door swung open and a man wearing well-worn clothing sauntered in, not looking up yet.

When he did he just stopped and blinked, “Oh.”

Lance took him in and then offered a small smile, “Were you the one who saved me?”

The man sighed, shoulders slumping as he answered him, a heavy accent to his language. “We took you out from that wreck, if that’s what you mean.”

Lance nodded and then he gestured down at himself, “Any chance you saved my armor too?”

He was only in the black flight suit, and while it was comfortable and breathable, he was pretty sure he would feel better if he could feel not so vulnerable and maybe even contact the Castle. The man frowned, and motioned for Lance to follow him. They took stairs up to the deck of the ship, the doorway exposing Lance to the people who rescued him for the first time—and boy, did they look ragged.

He tried to take it all in: the three masts with sails billowing in the wind, the choppy waves just past the railings, the men running around to get their jobs done, small shouts of orders from the more experienced personnel, and of course the fact that all of them were slightly different. The man he’d been following was a mostly average specimen of this species, it seemed, but masked his looming height by hunching his back and shoulders. His skin was a mottled brown and seemed to be more like the tightly woven scales found on snakes than the skin Lance was used to. He had a few tendrils that passed as hair, Lance supposed, that framed his neck. Others had beads and braids woven of their tendrils, but the man he followed just let them hang, moving in searching curls of their own volition (or so it seemed to Lance).

He’d seen a lot of different species from loads of different planets, so this really was not any more weird than other planets—Lance took it all in stride. However, as he followed the man across the deck (and found it more than a little difficult seeing as the deck was moving underneath him), he found that the crew didn’t seem to be as used to visitors from other worlds as he was, and they stopped what they were doing to stare. Distracted by being watched, Lance attempted to smile tightly, hoping it looked reassuring, at one of the crew members he passed, but only succeeded in tripping and nearly face-planting in a rope coil for his trouble. Fortunately, the man caught him with a single arm, righting him onto his feet before letting him go and clapping his shoulder, “Don’t worry, lad, you’ll find your sea legs soon.”

Lance stood there, eyebrows scrunched together as he tried to make sense of why he would have told him that. No, Lance would be returning to the Castle of Lions soon. He wouldn’t need to find his sea legs. He quickly went to catch up to the man who had proceeded on without him, feeling the eyes of the crew members on him. Once they entered a cabin on the other side of the deck that Lance could only assume was the Captain’s Office, the man closed the door and then turned to Lance, an apology on his lips.

“I apologize for the comport of my companions. They don’t know when to keep their eyes in their heads.” It was an odd way to phrase it, but Lance could understand well enough. He shrugged and held his hands out in front of himself, palms up.

“I mean, I get it. I probably would have stared too.”

“But you did not.” The man reminded him, giving him a look that meant he likely had to explain that. As Lance gaped, trying to come up with the right words, the man nodded and crossed to a footlocker, opening it and revealing Lance’s Blue Paladin armor. “I trust it has something to do with these strange garments.”

Lance crossed to stand beside the man, catching on then that this man was likely the Captain of this ragtag ship. He glanced at the strange lizard man before he scooped up the helmet, eying the cracked visor with some trepidation. He owed the man an answer before he shoved this down on his head. Staring at his own reflection, he found his tongue, “Have you heard of Voltron?”

The Captain watched him with curiosity and then shook his head, “Don’t take this the wrong way, lad, but pirates don’t get to keep up on the news as much as others do.”

Pirates? Lance glanced back toward the deck before meeting the Captain’s gaze. That made sense, actually, now that he thought about it. Lance sighed, “Do you know about the Galra, then?”

The Captain’s face morphed, showing some knowledge and it was clear he didn’t like the Galra much if at all. Lance was quick to speak up, “We—Voltron, I mean—we’re fighting against them.”

The Captain was slow to respond, his words pointed when he asked, “Like a resistance?”

Lance nodded, “Right, and with more and more people being freed from their control, thanks to our hard work, we’ve grown quite the alliance.”

The Captain moved around a roughly hewn desk and lowered himself into a chair. After tapping his clawed hand against the desk’s top for a moment, he returned his gaze to Lance. “Your ship—you crashed after fighting the Galra?”

Lance nodded, looking back at his helmet. “If I’m lucky, this thing will still work, and I can contact my team.”

The Captain watched him, and then gestured at him to go ahead and try it, and before Lance eagerly shoved the helmet onto his head, he offered the Captain a small, grateful smile.

~*~

Lance spent a good twenty minutes in the Captain’s office, attempting to get his helmet to connect to the Castle’s comms again. Nothing seemed to be even powering up, and the little he’d picked up from Hunk and Pidge, he knew he needed a power source to hook it up to if he wanted to get anything from it. So, he took off the helmet and asked.  
“Do you have anything that produces… uhhh… electricity?” He fumbled through an explanation, but the Captain just shook his head. Without any other ideas, Lance dropped the helmet back into the locker, standing with his head bowed and his eyes shut for a moment before he turned back to the Captain, a new tactic in mind. “My Lion—could you take me back there?”

The man did not seem amused, and scoffed before sitting back in his chair, crossing his arms. He made that position look much more intimidating than Coran ever did, but maybe that was the sheer bulk on the man before him. Standing, he easily towered over Lance, which meant he was well over six feet tall. Besides that, he seemed to be as wide as two Shiros standing shoulder to shoulder, and that was just mildly terrifying. “There’s nothing left there for you.”

It sounded so final that Lance opened his mouth to argue, but then thought better of it, and just lifted a hand to card through his hair, “What makes you think that?”

“Trust me, lad, if you had been awake when we pulled you out of there, you would know it in your bones. As a Captain, I’m telling you that ship is toast.”

Oh good, they had toast on this world. At least Lance had something to look forward to. With the way the Captain was demanding Lance to not question him, giving him a cabin all to himself… this was starting to feel less hospitable and more like a prison. After a long moment of silence that felt stifling, the Captain turned his gaze away and jutted his chin at the door. “I’ll have someone drop off your armor to your cabin. There should be suitable clothing in the cabinet in the corner by the bed you woke up in. I suggest you change and get yourself acquainted with the ship.”

Lance looked between the footlocker and the Captain, hesitant for a moment until he realized he didn’t really have enough information to find Red anyway. He ducked his head and moved toward the door. His hand was on the handle when the Captain spoke up again, “Oh, and her name’s Kana. Be good to her, and she’ll be good to you.”

Lance realized only after he’d sponged himself down with cold water that stung his wounds and redressed into some raggedy, but wearable clothing that the Captain had been referring to the ship. Apparently these people had the same idea humans did about naming their seafaring vessels. It intrigued him on some level, but at the same time he didn’t really want to get too well acquainted with the species on this planet. Not in this manner, trapped here with them, that was. Still, he knew he’d catch hell from Allura and Coran (maybe even Shiro) if he were to squander the chance to gain allies while he was on his own. Besides which, he could do with some friends right about now.

Getting to know the ship was a relatively easy affair: the deck had most of the rigging and items that one would expect to be up there, below decks there were a small number of personal-style cabins that still were fitted with multiple beds, but granted the crew members some semblance of privacy and ability to store their own equipment. There was the cargo area, of course, which Lance didn’t feel the need to explore fully once he’d found where it was, and the space netted with hammocks for the rest of the crew. He found the mess hall and kitchen not long after all of that and then found, at the very deepest belly of the Kana, the brig. Just before them, though, he found the latrines, and frowned a bit at the lack of hygiene in it all. He supposed he would have to take what he could get. He picked at his threadbare clothing and sighed, returning to his cabin to consider his options.

The way he saw it he had a few options: firstly, he could run off and not have a clue which direction he was supposed to go in, but attempt to connect with Red—that was risky, especially if Red decided not to respond; secondly he could just go along with the Captain and the Kana and hope that Voltron and the Castle of Lions caught up with his trail eventually; thirdly, he could go along with everything until he figured out a new plan—he decided to stick with that. He might even be lucky enough to figure out a way to get his helmet connected to the comms again! He just had to stick it out.

With a more set idea in his head of what to do (because Lance liked having _some_ kind of plan, at least), he decided to join the Captain when he knocked on the door some time later to let him know it was time to eat. After they fetched food and found the Mess Hall filled to the brim, the Captain took him up to the Main Deck, and then sat down with a few of what Lance presumed to be the higher up officers on the ship. The stars were peering through a thin veil of dark teal, the day’s sunshine now just a peachy glow that was quickly disappearing near the horizon. At least it looked similar to Earth. Lance dragged his utensil through the sludge in his bowl, thick and looking like some of the horrors the Garrison had tried to feed the cadets when Lance had first gotten there. The meals had improved quickly after some parents complained, but Lance doubted that these would no matter what he said. So he just tipped the food into his mouth and prayed it was at least as edible as food goo.

“You looked pretty rattled when we first pulled you out. Was surprised your brain wasn’t scrambled.” One of the officers commented before sticking another shovelful of food into his mouth. Lance swallowed thickly and offered a thin smile, curling one hand into a fist and knocking it gently on his head.

“All thanks to the helmet, I’m afraid.” Although he didn’t need to make it sound so grim, he grimaced and was about to correct it when another one of the officers commented on his armor. The conversation flowed for a while and Lance was pulled into talking to them about where he’d come from—that he was from a planet very far away, but that they also had ships like these. He was lost for a while in descriptions, and so when the Captain wandered off for the night, Lance hardly noticed.

It was as things were lulling into the quiet of the night: just the lapping of the water at the ship’s hull, that one of the officers leaned over and spoke in a low tone. “You know, when we first pulled your helmet off, I could have sworn you were the incarnation of Sleif.”

One of the other officers groaned and went to stand, but didn’t make it so far before the original one to speak shot him a judgmental look, “What? You can’t say he doesn’t look like the spitting image of him.”

“Who’s Sleif?” Lance cut in, leaning forward. Was he the previous Captain? Some hero known on this planet? A wondrous—

“The God of the Ocean.”

~*~

Keith grit his teeth, his jaw muscles chording as he set the Black Lion down in the hangar again. He’d just dredged up Red, looking worse for wear with her mouth hung open, gaping as she lay half-submerged in the seawater. Keith wasn’t angry about that, though he thought he had a right to be if he were. Instead he was more angry that they had yet to find Lance. Keith’s flight suit was soaked from wading through and clambering his way to the cockpit, tearing his helmet off as he took in the wreckage. There was no sign of Lance in there, but Keith knew that landing in that way couldn’t have left him with much ability to walk away easily.

He’d hit his knees at some point, breathing ragged as he tried to make sense of all that he was seeing inside of Red. She wasn’t responding to him, but that might have been his own fault—he had returned to Black, somehow letting the rest of the team know what he’d found and keeping his shit together. Such a leader he was, how proud Shiro must be. He felt the burn of frustrated tears spill over the brim of his eyes at some point, making his neck a salty swamp of disgusting. By the time he had gotten Red back up to the Castle, he knew he needed a moment, so he switched himself to mute on the comms, unable to do more than stare out of Black’s overhead at Red’s slumped form, a wrecked sob ripping from his throat.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, wailing about the lost Blue Paladin of Voltron before Hunk’s quiet question broke through to him, “Hey, Keith… buddy?”

He managed to package up the emotions that had tumbled out, and swiped at his face to try to minimize the damage, switching the comms back on, “Yeah, Hunk?”

He sounded terrible. _Great_. There was a slight hesitance, and then Hunk continued, “We’ve swept the island back and forth, plus the sea around it for miles. No sign of anyone. What do you want us to do now?”

That— _that_ was a good fucking question.

“We could reach out to nearby settlements, get the word out in case someone has seen him.” Allura suggested, her tone sounding just as determined and steady as ever. How did she do that? Keith cleared his throat.

“That sounds good, Allura.” That’s when Black’s jaw unhinged, and the camera showed Shiro standing at the bottom of the ramp, leaning on his human arm to glance up the gaping maw. “I’ll stay up at the Castle and help Shiro with the scans.”

Mostly because he just couldn’t fathom talking to people right now. He could trust the others to do it, but he just… he _couldn’t_ right now. The others answered in the affirmative and Keith shucked his helmet, the air from the cockpit cooling the tears he’d missed at his neckline. He scrubbed at the patch but found it was his suit that was soaked from them, so he left it and shakily made his way down to Shiro.

As soon as he was near enough, Shiro’s arms went out to him and Keith fell into them like he was a kid all over again, nearly collapsing against him in a miserable heap. Shiro’s hands rubbed soothing circles into his back and Keith had to take a long, wavering inhale before he was able to say anything, “I feel like such a failure.”

“You aren’t, Keith. Far from it.” Shiro’s words were firm and warm, like they always were. They stayed like that, interlocked and pressed together, Shiro holding Keith up, for a long moment, and then Keith forcefully straightened himself up and sniffed, cleared his throat and then tossed his helmet onto the pile of he-needed-to-remember-to-clean-it-later at Black’s feet. Without much ceremony he removed the rest of his armor, changing out of the flight suit, and then joined Shiro outside the hangar, striding with him toward the bridge.

Coran met them there, already compiling information and readings from the planet, along with preliminary scans. Shiro motioned to a seat and Keith took it without a word, sinking into it and tipping forward to plant his elbows on the table, head hiding behind the palms of his hands. When Shiro joined him after a moment, Keith murmured into his own skin, “We’re going to find him.”

Shiro met his eyes once he looked up, his gaze just as steady as his words had been earlier. “We will.”


	3. It Feels Like I've Been Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro gives Keith an apple. Meanwhile, someone falls overboard when the Kana meets a storm.

**“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” - Willa Cather**

Blue eyes snapped open to a strange blue-green glow bouncing off the walls. It looked other-worldly, and it was bright enough to hurt his eyes that had been accustomed to the darkness within the cabin. The ship rocked, swaying with the ocean waves. As it did the glow seemed to shift, changing and reflecting in different ways along the wooden boards that surrounded Lance.

He laid still for a moment, still processing before he levered his torso upright, his heart thundering in his ears and his breath puffing past his lips rapidly. Holding his hands out in front of him, he found the majority of the light emanating from his fingertips—okay, he’d seen this happen with his hands before. What he hadn’t seen, however, was the swirls of glowing faint lines running from the back of his hands up his forearms. As he tried to peer closer at them they faded, leaving his fingertips pulsing like a throbbing wound. He frowned at them, waiting it out. When he’d woken up to this before it had only been his fingertips, but it had been less glowy and it had quickly dissipated.

Within the span of a couple of breaths it was already dimming, but his heart was still hammering away in his chest. If this was the leftovers of the quintessence that Allura had filled him with to revive him, shouldn’t all of this be getting lessened instead of growing? And if it wasn’t that, then what could it be?

Slowly, he peeled back the covers and crossed to the small porthole, settling his shaking hand against the cool glass as he peered upward toward the night sky. It wasn’t quite like home: there were three moons, for one, and they all were at differing phases. That and the stars didn’t form any sort of constellations he could identify. He sighed and squinted, trying to see if he could see any flying mechanical lions. There was nothing, of course, but he stayed there, finding a seat on the chest that was holding his defunct armor.

It was a long rest of the night, and he had to rigidly uncurl himself from his position by the tiny window when the mealtime whistle blew with the peach dawn sky just beginning to lighten and reveal the tealy-blue that it usually was during the daytime. As he dragged himself to his feet, he glanced down at the footlocker and then tapped it with the toe of his shoe, cringing as the corner of the container dug into his toes. He frowned at it then, turning away and lifting the latch to his door.

Breakfast was a weak and bland fare, and Lance swallowed it rather numbly, his mind far away and focused on the myriads of questions he had swirling about—questions about where he was, when Voltron would find him, and even about the mysterious glowing fingertips he’d developed. The two officers that the Captain had introduced him to last night sunk into seats framing Lance, and not for the first time, the Paladin felt as though he wasn’t simply enjoying the hospitality of the Kana’s crew.

“Cap’n said we were to look after you today, make sure you learned the ropes.” That was the one who hadn’t compared him to a God. Lance glanced between the two, and the one who had compared him just nodded dutifully.

“We’re supposed to make you useful.”

Lance sighed and lowered his eyes to the mushy meal, a frown on his lips. Well, he’d had to clean pods with Coran when he first became a Paladin of Voltron. How much worse could this be?

 

It turned out that it could be a _lot_ worse. He was pretty sure he had a sunburn on his back, and he’d never had a sunburn in his life. He was sweating and his arms ached as he cinched another rope tight around a couple of barrels and crates, bundling them on the deck in preparation for the afternoon’s drop off. Apparently they would be making landfall in order to trade some goods, and these were the ones they were intending on trading.

However, by early afternoon there was a gray cloud accumulation on the horizon that was making Lance feel a bit on edge. Growing up he’d heard all about riding out storms on ships, and knew just how distasteful that was. The Captain, it seemed, had no such qualms and happily stopped at a tiny port on an island, sent some of the crew off to trade, and then beckoned them back, saying that they had a schedule to keep to, and a storm to outrun.

Lance didn’t want to say it, but he doubted they would be outrunning the storm as the winds picked up and the clouds crept closer, crowding out the sun.

~*~

Keith was watching the second scan of the surface, their sensors attempting to pick up even a weak signal coming from Lance’s paladin armor. So far there was nothing. He still stood there, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against a console, hoping that there might be some change within the next few minutes that would bring him some sense of relief. None came. Instead, Shiro joined him, tossing a round red fruit in his direction. Keith caught it and turned it over, eyebrows scrunched as he considered it—it looked like an apple, but it was sure to taste nothing like one. Nothing in space ever tasted like it would have on Earth.

“You should take a break; eat something.” Shiro was trying to be helpful. Trying to take care of him. Keith didn’t answer but bit into the fruit. It tasted like blueberries and the flesh inside was pink tinged. It had a pit instead of seeds, and Keith frowned, chewing it thoughtfully.

“I’m good.” He finally said, perfectly aware that Coran and Allura were eavesdropping from across the room, conducting other searches and scans of the planet. He kept his gaze locked on the screen before him, taking another bite of the fruit. Shiro watched him, looking unconvinced.

“Did you even sleep?” Shiro’s tone was low enough that Keith knew he was trying to make that comment private. He ignored him once more, knowing full well that Shiro knew he didn’t. He’d been here all through the night, and now it was mid-morning and he had yet to even shower and change. Shiro pressed on, even with his lack of response, “We’re all looking, you know. If we find anything, we’ll come get you. But you need to rest. You’ll be no good to him if you’re sleep deprived.”

He kept his low tone, though Keith was certain that Alteans had better hearing than humans and the two across the room had heard the entire thing. Still, he had to at least give Shiro something. He loosened his stance and twisted slightly to meet his gaze, “I’m no good to him anyway, seeing as he could be hurt or worse down there right now, and we have no idea where he is.”

Shiro’s mouth set into a grim line and he nodded once, breaking their eye contact and settling his own eyes on the screen. Still nothing down there. They stood in silence for a while, and then Allura cleared her throat, an obvious plea for their attention. When they glanced over, the Princess looked a bit queasy as she spoke, “You may want to see this.”

Keith nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to get over to their work station, hoping that it was something that would lead them to the missing Blue Paladin. Instead his eyes settled on the swirling mass of a storm that seemed to cover a sixth of the world’s surface, and it was moving toward where they had found the Red Lion crash landed. Which meant it was moving toward Lance. Keith’s pulse thundered in his ears, he almost missed what Coran was saying about it—“It seems to still be gearing up, too. I expect it will be hitting landfall within the next day cycle of this planet. We need to warn the settlements.”

~*~

Lance’s first instinct was to duck and cover as the wind whipped around. They were still rushing around, rolling barrels and carrying crates between two men each in order to secure the cargo from the stop. The Captain was bellowing orders to tie things down, to not only secure the cargo, but to start shifting the sails into better positions, trying to use the winds to their advantage. Unfortunately, the blusters weren’t just blowing in a single direction, and it mostly seemed to be shoving the ship toward the storm instead of away from it.

Adrenaline coursed through his veins, but he could do nothing more than to use his shaking hands to tie ropes that were thrown down to him from the rigging. He was still shirtless, and even with the sun blotted out, he was sweating profusely enough to warrant not even attempting to find one. The second officer, Klaz, had clapped him on the shoulder earlier and proclaimed him a natural, once again questioning if he was a god. Lance had uneasily laughed him off, and the first officer had barked at them to get back to work. Now, Lance was glad he’d picked up the knots easily and kept producing them. His hands felt raw, and as the first drops of rain splattered across the main deck, he heard even more shouting.

The Captain seemed too busy to tell him whether or not he should go below deck, and try to ride out the storm in his cabin, and the men around him seemed more than happy to have another set of hands to give a job to do. So even as the rain picked up, driving hard against his chest and back, Lance did his best to keep up with the crew. He was squinting against the rain and the waves were climbing in height, thrashing the ship around in the water. Gushes were sweeping over the deck’s boards, washing them clean and making trudging into a new position more difficult. Torrents of rain plastered his hair down against his forehead; his jaw was clenched and he wondered how he hadn’t had a lick of sea-sickness yet, even with the vicious rocking of the ship being tossed about on gargantuan waves.

It was a wonder that anyone was able to keep upright what with the motion of the deck beneath them, and in order to even communicate normally, they were having to yell above the gales of wind. The storm wasn’t finished, either, it just kept building, and the rest of the crew were either darting inside or were securing themselves to the rigging. Lance could hardly see, but he knew he was closer to the Captain’s cabin than to his own. Still, he didn’t exactly feel comfortable pushing himself into the Captain’s quarters, and began a stop-and-go journey across the deck toward the door that led down to the cabins.

The pitching and tumbling of the ship across the waves only grew more tumultuous with the waters, and Lance felt the first roll of nausea lurch behind his bellybutton—enough to throw him off and take his attention off the deck beneath his feet. The next heave of the ship threw him to his knees, the force making him knock his palms flat to stop himself from knocking himself out on the planks. A gush of salty water swept over him and he gasped as it left him feeling weak and frozen. His pants and shoes were soaked through already by the rains, but they felt sodden by the water that had washed over him.

He moved to scramble to his feet as the deck jerked beneath him again and he was thrown sideways, his ribs hitting hard against what had to be the railing of the ship, and he felt the world spinning around him. The breath had been knocked out of him by the initial impact, and whatever might have been left in his lungs was expelled as soon as his back hit the water.

 

He didn’t know how long he was out for, he just knew that he was fighting back against the darkness around him, and all he could think was how he’d been left behind by the ship and he was going to die to some ridiculous sea monster, or maybe just the storm itself. As he slowly regained consciousness, he found that his breathing was smooth and rhythmic, and then he jerked, feeling the rush of water in his nose as he breathed in— _how_ was he—was he _dead_?!

His eyes opened and he could see the surface of the water above him: it was meters away, and he was panicking as he struggled to expel the water he’d been breathing in— _how was he alive right now_? His hands clenched at his throat, and it was around that time that he saw the glow coming from his arms. Not just his fingertips glowed, not just swirling patterns from the back of his hands, his fingers had rings of it where normal jewelry would sit. He saw the swirls continuing up his biceps and swirling over his shoulders, down his chest and sides, disappearing on his back. From under the thin material of his borrowed pants, he saw the filtered glow of more swirls, and something surged in his chest. He looked up toward the surface only to see it racing toward him.

Before he knew it, he was hovering above the gigantic waves, and a part of him felt irritated about the whole thing. How dare his domain revolt against him so? He breathed out in a frustrated huff and water spilled from between his lips, spilling over his chin like a mini waterfall. His ability to breathe water almost felt… _natural_. Like he’d always been able to do that. The ship was leagues away, climbing the crest of another wave. Lance grit his teeth and reached for the ship, finding himself hovering above the deck by mere feet in the next blink. How he’d done that, he wasn’t certain—how he was able to do any of this was beyond any rational part of his brain. Right now he was operating under the impression that he was dead and this was all some dying hallucination.

He lowered until his bare feet (when had he lost those flimsy shoes?) connected with the deck and he cast his gaze out into the storm, eyes open against the driving rain as he looked up into the swirling storm clouds.

And suddenly, he remembers: it's like opening his eyes to the first light of day. He remembers the power he holds in just his pinky finger; he remembers how his father shunned him for liking humanity too much, and how he cast him out. He remembers the power his waves once had. How had he ever forgotten?

He grits his teeth and opens his eyes to face the storm that's throwing this tiny ship around on the ocean's surface and his power swells inside of him, bursting forth as he throws his hands out to either side, fighting to quell the tempest raging around him.

Somehow, the storm around him seems to almost bend to his will. It takes some work and flexing of muscles he didn’t even know he had, but he curls his fingers into claws and digs his heels into the wood beneath him; he feels like he was dragging the squall around him to a halt, slowly and kicking and screaming, but he was still doing it. The waves lessened, the wind gentled, the rain turned to a sprinkle, the clouds dissipated and began to reveal the sun once more.

As the waters stilled, returning to calm seas, crew members appeared from the rigging and below decks, halting in a circle around him, murmuring and averting their eyes whenever he looked in their direction. Lance knew he was different—obviously he was. He knew that these men had seen him as a lost boy before, virtually useless to them. Now, however, he was their God.

His head felt split in his thoughts—part of him was flabbergasted and still trying to rationalize what was happening; the other part had him raking his eyes across the crew and knowing instinctively who his followers were. He was about to say something when the crowd parted and the Captain stepped forth, eyes wide and stance braced. After a wordless moment, the Captain knelt, one arm crossing over his chest to place a fist over his heart, “My Lord, you have saved us.”

The words felt forced out, like the Captain was having a hard time speaking near him. Perhaps he was. Sleif dialed back his aura by quite a bit and he could almost see the crew around him breathe easier. He raised his chin slightly and the Captain glanced up enough to catch his eye momentarily. Sleif blew out a breath past his lips and shifted his stance to be more casual, an easy grin taking over his face. “Yeah, well, you kind of saved me before. It’s only fair I save you back.” Then he crossed to the railing and patted it with one of his glowing hands, “Besides, the Kana is a good girl. She deserves more than she’s gotten lately.”

The Captain spluttered and the others, all knelt now that Sleif— _Lance_ —took a look around, began to peer at each other from their bent and reverent positions. Sleif—dammit, he was _Lance_ —beckoned them all to stand with a couple of waves of his hand. As they climbed to their feet, he shrugged and glanced around. “It looks like there’s plenty to clean up around here. If we all pitch in, it’ll be done well before dinner’s due.”

The Captain gaped, perhaps a little less openly than the others in the crew, but the first to say anything was Klaz, grinning and thumping his chest with his fist, “Sir, yes sir!”

That seemed to kick everyone into gear, and with some furtive looks cast his way, they all scrambled to various parts of the ship, cleaning up after the storm. Sleif-Lance put his hands on his hips and smiled around at the work being done before looking back at the Captain, who still couldn’t meet his eyes, but at least he was approaching now. His voice was just the same as it had been the first time they’d met: gruff, “My Lord, perhaps we should retire to my cabin and talk about what we should do with you.”

Sleif-Lance snorted, amused at the mortal’s way of trying to seem like he was still in control. He gave a one shouldered shrug, happy to entertain him for now, “Sure thing. We can talk about how to spruce up your menu while we’re there—you know, spices are a magical thing.”


	4. Break Me Down and Build Me Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith drops his fork. Lance gets a haircut.

**“The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.” - Unknown**

Keith had fallen asleep draped over one of the consoles. He felt the discomfort before he’d even truly awoken, his back and neck twinging as he tried to straighten them and using the back of his hand to wipe at the string of drool connecting the corner of his lips to the console’s surface. _Gross_. He rigidly made to sit up, only to find Pidge tapping away at a tablet in front of him and several people off to the side, gathered at a different console in various states of exhaustion. Allura appeared to have been going since Lance had initially gone missing, but Coran and Hunk looked well-rested and freshly showered. Shiro and Pidge, though, landed somewhere in the middle—Pidge had clearly showered and was shoveling a plate of goo into her face, but Shiro looked as though he’d just rolled out of bed from a nap, his hair sticking in all directions. And then there was Krolia— _wait_ ,

“Mom?” He mostly mumbled the query, his body still not quite woken up all the way. The woman turned from where she was holding a conversation with Shiro and Allura, and blinked as she took in her son’s appearance.

“Ah, you’re awake. I hope that console was comfortable. It didn’t look it.” Her nose crinkled as she loosed her brand of joke toward him. Keith didn’t have it in him to do more than look down in disgust at the puddle of drool he’d created and he pushed himself away from the seat, stumbling once before he gained his footing.

“When did you get here?” He hadn’t been aware that she was anywhere close to Zirconia, the planet they were orbiting, let alone could have gotten on the Castle so quickly. Just how long had he been asleep for?

Krolia took pity on him and hooked her arm through his without making it look like much more than a hug shared between mother and son. “Oh, not long. Coran said that Lance had been lost on a planet that had a planet-wide storm on it. I figured I would lend a hand.”

No mention of how far she’d come to do so. Keith narrowed his eyes in suspicion and his mother caught on, raising her eyebrows and turning to begin leading him off, toward the door that led away from the bridge. He glanced back briefly to find everyone purposefully busying themselves with something else so they wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. That only clenched it for him—they had banded together and thought that calling up his Mom in order to rein him in was the best option, no regard for what she had been doing, “So who convinced you to come here?”

“No one, honey, I just thought Voltron could use the help in locating one of their own. Besides, I’d never seen a planet-wide storm.” She wouldn’t even meet his eyes as she said it.

“Mom.” He planted his feet, pulling them to a stop in the hallway, now that they were a safe distance from even Altean ears. “Come on, you shouldn’t be here. You should be helping the Blade.”

She sucked in a breath and then lifted her gaze to meet his, eyebrows knit, showing concern that was uncharacteristic of her, “Shiro told me you were pushing yourself too hard. That you thought it was your fault. I thought that perhaps I could convince you otherwise.”

Oh. _Oh_. Keith’s eyes dropped to the tops of his shoes, his fists balling up at his sides. Krolia reached out, gently taking one of his hands and unfurling it, laying it flat and palm down against one of her own, “We will find him. Together. And no matter in what state we find him in, it won’t have been your fault. He’s a great pilot, as you’ve told me many times—I have no doubt that he will be fine, storm or not.”

Keith huffed and allowed her to lead him toward the kitchens, setting some food that Hunk had clearly made in front of him. He was a third of a piled plate down and was taking a sip of water when she cleared her throat, “So, you care deeply for Lance, don’t you?”

When Keith just took measured stabs with his fork into his food, she pushed on, “More than the other Paladins, I mean.”

Keith was about to put a forkful into his mouth when he met his mother’s gaze, and he sighed, putting the fork back onto the plate. “I don’t know what you expect me to say. Yes, of course I do? I can’t measure that, Mom.”

Krolia watched him carefully and Keith went back to eating until she spoke again, making him chew slower. “Then perhaps not more, but you care for him differently.”  
Keith swallowed thickly, feeling his food travel in a ball down his esophagus. He swallowed a couple more times, his eyes on his plate as he opened his mouth to tell her that yes, he was stupidly, utterly _devoted_ to Lance. That he hurt more than anything when he wasn’t even sure if the other was okay, let alone where he was…

An ear-splitting roar rumbled throughout the Castle, loud enough that his fork clattered against the table where he had dropped it to press his hands against his ears, cringing and gritting his teeth as the roar felt like it was echoing in his chest. Except that it wasn’t Black that was roaring—Black was sitting in his hangar, quiet and sedate as though nothing had happened. He didn’t wait for his mom, but rushed through the doors, sprinting to the bridge. As soon as he had skidded past the doors, his mom hot on his trail, he heard Allura calling out to him about what had happened.

“Red just woke up, dropped her particle barrier and roared. She’s pacing the hangar now.” This wasn’t usual behavior for any of the lions, let alone Red. On the screen Coran had pulled up at one of the consoles, Red was lashing her tail back and forth, paws clunking solidly against the hangar’s floor.

“Uh, guys? You might wanna see this…” Pidge directed their attention to the main screen, where she was pulling up the scans of the surface where they had been following the storm. At first there didn’t seem to be anything of note, but then, inexplicably, the storm seemed to lose momentum and just… dissolved. A planet-wide storm that should have been devastating… and it just _disappeared_.

What kind of world was Lance trapped on?

~*~

“You’re scaring them—you’re scaring _me_.” The Captain ground out as soon as the door was closed after them. Sleif-Lance thought he ought to remember that he owed them nothing—no, wait, that wasn’t right, he couldn’t do that. He trailed his index finger’s tip across the scuffed surface of the Captain’s desk and then he leaned back against it, not caring that he was putting his back to the man. He wasn’t much of a threat anyway. The Captain sounded almost strangled as he continued, quieter now, “Can you at least stop glowing?”

Sleif snorted, and cast a glance over his shoulder, making the Captain suck in a sharp breath. The man’s eyes dropped down to the desk instead of looking at him, and it took a moment, but Lance figured out that it was because his eyes were different. The old mirror was darkened around the edges, filled with scratches, but it still reflected Lance, still soaked and dripping sea water onto the floorboards of the Captain’s Cabin, hair limp and hanging off to the right side of his forehead, brushed over there to get it out of his face, his eyes glowing a teal blue that matched the swirling patterns tracing the sides of his face, trailing down from his temples to his jaw, disappearing down his neck and wrapping around his torso and arms, and then disappearing beneath the trousers that hung from his hips on the verge of being indecent, down to swirling on the tops of his feet and wrapping around his toes. His fingertips were still radiating that same light, and Lance found himself looking down at the desk’s surface, quiet and considering. It was Sleif that made his eyes flicker before fading to look mostly like his normal eyes had—they were still kind of eerie and had a strange shifting quality about them, but they weren’t glowing any longer. He glanced back up and tapped the desk, “Better?”

The Captain jerked, resisting looking up at him before he slowly traced his eyes up from Lance’s finger, up his arm, past his shoulder, and met his eyes. The Captain released a breath he’d apparently been holding and nodded in a lurching way that looked awkward and somewhat uncomfortable. He rolled his shoulder and lifted his hand from the wooden desk, crossing his arms over his chest. At least he wasn’t cold, which was something because shouldn’t he be? He had just been out in a tempest at sea. That shouldn’t have been warm by any stretch of the imagination, and yet here he stood without even gooseflesh rising on his skin. Just the strange glowing swirls. The Captain took a moment, and then sunk into his chair, looking absolutely exhausted, “I take it that you will not be keeping us company any longer.”

Sleif shrugged one shoulder, making it seem as though he didn’t really have an agenda, “I mean, it’s not as though I can just fly on up and meet with my team members. Even _I_ can’t survive in space.”

_Could he_? He honestly didn’t have an answer for that—he’d never attempted it. He probably could. Not much could kill a God. Sleif considered this, his fingers framing his chin and scraping against the scruff that had been gained there from a couple of days of having not shaved now. Lance wished he wouldn’t point that out, but somehow he got the feeling that his Godly counterpart liked to be a little scruffy. Not that Sleif was, _exactly_ a different person than he was—it just felt like he was kind of separate, but mostly the same. It was like Lance had remembered who he had been and that he’d had this entire other life (or lives?) and all of those feelings, associations, and memories were being shoved into his skull. He had this other personality that honestly felt like it was kind of a jerk, and it wanted to be in control. At the moment, Sleif was in control of his body. Lance couldn’t figure out how to get out of this odd lock-up and back-burner type of feeling he couldn’t help but feel he was embodying.

The Captain interrupted his introspection to nod toward him, “But you can probably fix your communications device up now, can’t you? With those glowing hands?”

It was a nudge, but the man sounded like he was begrudgingly giving Sleif that nudge. Sleif spun to face the man and clapped the palms of his hands down on the desk’s surface, a smile slicing up his face in a way that seemed utterly alien to how Lance normally smiled, “You’re on it, Captain. I should give you an award for that one.”

The man looked taken aback—by the outburst itself or by a God wanting to give him an award, Lance couldn’t tell, but he had to wonder what constituted for an award until he found himself speaking once more, “Once we hit land, I’ll make sure your name is respected.”

Sleif reached across the desk and snatched up the man’s scaled hand, running the pads of two fingers up from knuckles to just past his wrist joint, swirling teal blue settling into the man’s skin and leaving a dark impression that looked like a tattoo, a symbol of an ocean wave, stylized, and permanently left on him. Sleif proclaimed with a joyous edge to his voice, “You’re one of mine now, feel free to call me—I may or may not answer.”

Then he was skipping off, swinging the door open and then closed again as he left, crossing the deck with a jaunty whistle on his lips, not even noticing the sailors stopping to watch him before he disappeared down toward the cabins.

 

As usual, his cabin was empty but the footlocker had been tossed on its side, the lid of it now opening up to spill its contents across the floor. A boot and his helmet rolled out, and only after he scooped up the helmet did his chestplate flop out as well. Lance scoffed and kicked it out of the way so it wouldn’t get the lid dropped back on it. Then he halted all movement and glanced down at the helmet. Did he really want this? I mean: really, _really_ want this? Shouldn’t he stay down here and be all Godly to his actual people? No, Voltron needed him. He needed to fight against the Galra Empire and he could do with the flexing of his powers to do so. After all, he hadn’t had to play God in… he squinted at the helmet and tried to wipe some dirt from it only to find it was on the inside of the visor, so he reached inside and swiped it away. It had to have been almost two decades now—which would have been the blink of an eye except… it didn’t really feel like that had been it. It felt like he’d been made to forget how everything worked. How _he_ worked.

Jerkily, he moved to sit on the cot, setting the helmet down beside him. He kicked his feet out and crossed them at the ankle, watching vacantly as the glowing teal lines swirled around his feet. They never seemed to settle, they just kept coiling and moving like some living thing. Lance frowned and then reached over with his pointer finger, instinctively knowing that it wouldn’t take much to zap his helmet back into working. He hesitated, finger centimeters away from the helmet, and then he took a large breath in and his fingertip met with the smooth surface.

Almost instantly he could tell it was working again. He sat up straighter and slid the helmet down over his sodden hair, not caring about the interior of the visor fogging up as he breathed out and thought about hailing the Castle. He took a moment and then as the communication line seemed to be picked up, he spoke evenly, trying to sound as Lance-like as he could, “Hey, guys?”

He waited, and for a moment he thought he’d been a little too presumptive about his ability to fix the communications and perhaps he needed Pidge after all when Hunk’s voice came over the line, incredulous, “ _Lance_?!”

~*~

Lance tries to participate in the normal, daily activities on board, using his normal, human body, but the crew doesn’t seem interested in allowing a God— _their_ God—to do any heavy lifting. Which Lance thought was pretty funny, because they always seemed to call out to various Gods and Spirits whenever they felt there was something that was too big for themselves to handle. At least, on Earth that’s the way it had been. Perhaps he’d been wrong to assume it was just the same here?

Either way, his appearance still put many of the crew members off, although the officer who had first compared him to Sleif was more than happy to remain in his company. It told something of the man that he was completely comfortable yammering away in Sleif’s presence, as though he were just another person on this watery world. Sleif-Lance appreciated it, and happily on top of the cargo box he had deemed as his for the afternoon, legs tucked up to sit in Shiro’s normal sitting position, and arms jutted back, weight thrown back to rest on them, the heels of his palms digging into the rough hewn wood of the crate.

“I’m just saying, it would be nice if we got a good long shore leave now and again—I’d like to just sleep out on the beach beneath the stars for a night or two.” Officer Klaz crossed his arms and leaned forward to rest them on the rail, looking out across the calm waters. Sleif felt some of the surf kick into the air, sprinkling them with shimmering droplets. He squinted against the onslaught, but nodded, lips shut tight for now. “What about you, any yearnings to do anything? Eat anything you can’t get out here?”

Officer Klaz was one he wanted to keep, but he got the feeling the man was destined for greater things than him, a lowly Ocean God who didn’t know how to control his own appearance to look like a normal human. Still, he knew he would mark him before he left. He wanted to be able to look after him, even if he was not the greatest God out there. He pondered the question posed to him, however, and frowned out at the sea, huffing as he tipped his head back and gazed up into the deepening blue of the sky. Out there, somewhere, was his team, and he would be meeting up with them soon. Klaz spoke up before Lance could open his mouth to answer, “Ah, there’s someone out there you want to get back to. I can understand that.”

Lance just cast his eyes over to the Officer who smiled at him knowingly. “Not anyone specific; not as such.”

Klaz rose what would have been eyebrows, had this species had hair there, and put up his hands defensively, chuckling softly. “Alright, alright; you just had the look of a man looking forward to getting back to his love.”

Lance huffed, a bit of irritation leaking out around the edges at that proclamation, but he said nothing more against Klaz’s statement. Instead, he shifted his weight to lean forward, bringing his arms in front of himself, eyes falling to the swirling patterns. “I don’t suppose you know of a good way to make these go away?”

He frowned and squinted against the sunlight reflecting off the water, watching for Klaz’s reaction. The Officer just moved off from the rail and crossed to reach out for Lance’s arm—a daring move, he would have said, but he was beginning to understand that this man was a bit different from the rest of the crew and had little to no reservations with him. “They won’t be expecting you to look like this, I take it?”

He hummed and turned Lance’s arm this was and that before he lifted his hand away and tapped his own lips with his talon. “Well, how did you get your eyes to turn back?”

Lance’s lips twisted into a grimace and he groaned, “I don’t know, Sleif did it.”

Right then and there he froze, the admission having fallen from his lips without a thought. Klaz tipped his head, looking less like a lizard-man and more like a confused puppy. It would have been cute if Lance wasn’t internally panicking. “So I’m talking to Lance right now?”

The man spoke carefully, obviously not wanting to set off the God. Lance slowly lifted his eyes to meet Klaz’s, “Yeah. You always were.”

He said it quietly, almost too quietly and the Officer seemed to really puzzle it out before he spoke again, “So you aren’t the same person?”

Lance hummed and let his gaze wander over the slightly choppy sea. He was getting looks from the crew, and he breathed out slowly as he tried to smooth out the waters. “Sort of? I don’t really know how to answer that. It’s like… he’s a part of me.”

Klaz nodded and stroked at his chin before he shrugged and turned to look out over the water, his tongue flicking out and up to wet his right eye. It was one of the weirder things that Lance had to bear witness to with this species. “Well,” the man began, “it sounds like you need to get in touch with yourself.”

Lance let that fall between them and stayed quiet as he tried to picture what that meant, “So what, like meditation?”

Klaz turned his head to regard him, “I don’t know what that is, but if it’s what you thought of… perhaps.”

 

It was a long afternoon in the sun later that Lance could say he didn’t really feel any better about himself and Sleif being on the same page. He’d meditated, he’d tried singing shanties that Sleif seemed to recall, trying to draw him out more, but nothing stirred. That evening he approached Klaz after dinner and offered him some sheers that Lance had to scrounge around for. Klaz had happily taken them up and had been eager to match what Lance asked for, which was whatever Sleif was traditionally represented with. Klaz gave him an undercut, leaving Lance feeling lighter as his hair was off his neck. The top of his head was left at its current length, just barely trimmed up a bit, but still its messy, beginning-to-curl nature. It was dark and the deck was being lit by lanterns by the time Klaz was dusting off his shoulders, marveling at his freckling, “You know, I was taught that speckled scaling meant that you were more adapted to blending in.”

Lance snorted, rubbing at one of his shoulders in the dim lighting, his teal swirls even seeming to take the hint and being less obtrusive, “I don’t think it works the same way with humans.”

Klaz just nodded his understanding and then gestured to his skin, “It’s turning off, it looks like. You doing that, or is he?”

As he drew attention to it, Lance watched as the swirls slowed and then settled into place, the lighting dimming before going out entirely and leaving them in the darkness. The glow from the lanterns and the flecks of light from the stars were all that lit them tonight, as the clouds had covered the partial moon that was in the sky that night. Lance frowned down at himself, “I don’t know…”

Klaz smacked him on the shoulder roughly and grinned a mouthful of strangely sharp looking teeth at him, “Either way, your friends should like the new marks, and at least they aren’t glowing anymore.”

Lance couldn’t say whether that was a good thing or not, though, since he now looked to be covered head to toe in tattoos. His Mama would _kill_ him if she ever saw this. Nevermind how he was supposed to explain this to the other Paladins when they inevitably saw them. Like in two days, when they docked and Lance was able to be picked up and return to the Castle once more.


	5. I Walk on Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Voltron has breakfast together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! You guys get a double-feature this week! To be fair, the plot is still setting up, but hopefully you're enjoying the action.
> 
> This chapter may seem like filler, but I promise it's got a lot of smaller interactions that are important.

**“The sea has neither meaning nor pity.” - Anton Chekhov**

He leaned up against the railing for only a brief moment before he was called back to manning another rope, using his new-found strength to pull one of the ropes down, coiling it around the wooden pegs and securing it in place before he was tossed another. Sleif had been quiet since the haircut, as though that was all he had needed to make himself feel heard—for now. Lance had no illusions that this other personality he had within him was done taking over from time to time. Still, it had been nice to just take his time and be himself, discovering all these new tricks he had up his sleeves.

After his haircut, Klaz had offered to pierce his ears—something he said was a pirate thing. Lance hadn’t been about it until the next day, when he decided hey, why not? He’d look killer with them. Okay, so that might have been a little bit of Sleif leaking out, but he now thought that the gold rings looked pretty damn good against his skin and newly acquired tattoos. In trade, Lance had left his mark on Klaz’s shoulder blade, telling the man that all he had to do was think in his direction and he would be there for him. He’d been overjoyed to have been given such a gift, and had thanked Lance profusely.

Now, however, they were angling the ship in toward the port, and already Lance had seen the gleaming metal bodies of the Lions. His heart had soared, maybe even more so than it had when he’d first flown Blue; especially with Red sitting there, looking pretty as ever. He was glad the crash hadn’t permanently damaged him, he would have felt pretty stupid—not just because Keith would give him hell, but Allura would give him more. As he was gawking again at the shoreline, the next rope smacked him on the top of the head and his shoulder.

He squawked, jumping to the side and watching the coil of the rope hit the deck in a jumbled mess, a call down to him that sounded suspiciously like a curse, and then he was snatching it up, getting back to his job. He was still shirtless, glistening with a thin sheen of sweat and he’d traded the more threadbare set of pants for a set that was a little more becoming of a God: blue fabric, billowy in the wind that blustered across the deck, and gathered at his ankles and again at his hips, held there with a teal sash of fabric that had been scrounged up at the last trading stop they’d made. It had been something Klaz had grabbed for him, and he’d decided to use it as a belt for the foreseeable future. He hadn’t been able to find the shoes he’d been given, and since he hadn’t been off the ship at all, he figured he didn’t really need them anyway. Besides, once he was able to change into his Paladin armor, he would have boots, so it would be futile to find him shoes to wear anyway.

The ship took some time to maneuver properly and Lance was kept busy with securing ropes, and then moving the cargo up to the main deck. His work didn’t stop there, either, he didn’t feel right leaving the crew to do everything, so even once the ship was docked, he helped the others to carry the cargo off the ship, stacking it and securing it until later, when the Captain and the Officers would work on trading it for other needed items. He was so busy that he didn’t even have time to look around for the other Paladins, and it wasn’t until he noticed Klaz standing with someone that he’d even thought about where they were—he just assumed they were over by the Lions. Instead, he was greeted by the sight of Keith standing there, next to Klaz, in his Red Paladin armor.

“Keith? Buddy?” He hadn’t thought about the fact that he looked a bit different than how he’d last been seen by the Paladins, and he reached out, his fingertips barely skating over the exposed flightsuit of Keith’s left bicep when the Paladin wheeled around.

There was a moment of silence where they took each other in—the dark circles under Keith’s eyes spoke volumes about what the team had been going through, and Lance wondered what he’d missed—and then they surged toward each other like the tide meeting the shore, and Lance wasn’t sure if he’d be more uncomfortable holding Keith tighter to him with the armor digging into him as it was or letting him go and leaving that distance between them. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to let the other Paladin go.

He heard in the periphery his name being called in question, but he wasn’t really ready to let go just yet, so he kept holding on, feeling a little sheepish when it took Klaz clearing his throat to break the two of them apart. He stepped back and gave Keith a good once over again, making sure he hadn’t missed any less-obvious injuries the first time, and then turned to look over at the other Paladins—it looked like only Coran was left up manning the ship, even Krolia was here! Sleif grinned and then he patted Keith’s bicep a couple of times before he skipped over to scoop Pidge up and wheel her around and then crash himself into Hunk’s waiting arms. This time he was crushed into the armor as opposed to crushing himself against it—it felt uncomfortable either way. Over Hunk’s shoulder, he met Allura’s gaze and his grin widened—Sleif was definitely leaking through more as he spoke, “’Sup, Princess? You miss me?”

He was met with rolls of eyes and scoffs, comments about how he was still the same old Lance, and then Hunk was setting him down. As they crowded around him, he nudged Krolia with his elbow, side-eying her as she did him, and then cocked his head to the side, “What brings you to town?”

The casual equivalent of ‘business or pleasure?’ and Krolia’s eyes flicked over to Keith before she met Lance’s again. “I heard there was a big storm. Wanted to see it for myself.”

Lance nodded sagely, and then he was pulled out of that conversation by Shiro’s arm yanking him into his side, repositioning his attention back to the crew of the Kana. Lance patted Shiro in wordless thanks, and then approached Klaz, knowing him best. Besides, he was the highest ranking Officer out here so far. In a low tone so as not to be overheard, Lance assured him, “As I said, I’ll make sure others know you’re a good crew—a good ship. I’ll be listening for you, too, you know—if you ever want my help.”

Klaz motioned over his shoulder and two crew members carried the footlocker up onto the dock, setting it down by the two of them. With a wave they were dismissed, and Klaz was answering, “So, do you think if I pray to you that you’ll just sort of hear it like a letter was sent to you or something?”

Lance’s eyebrows rose and he shrugged with one shoulder, one hand rising to rest on his hip, “I mean, we can try it and see. If it doesn’t work… well, I can get you a communicator.”

“I feel like praying is longer distance than whatever communications device you could give me.” Klaz looked bemused by the offer, but then he reached out, tugging on a curl that was falling across Lance’s right eyebrow, and then releasing it, “Either way, I will be forever grateful for your blessings.”

It felt… almost too good. Lance felt a sort of blush rise in his cheeks and he swallowed dryly, eyes dropping to the deck. Klaz gave a chuckle and smacked his chest with the back of one of his hands, “Now take your gear and go save other people.”

Lance grinned, his eyes rising back up to meet Klaz’s amber and brown mottled ones. Hunk and Pidge were already gathering his armor from the locker, and Lance was somewhat startled by their presence, only looking back at the Officer when he caught Lance’s hand, leaning to place a chaste kiss on the back of it before he whirled and disappeared back on the ship. His breath caught in his throat, Lance started to turn back toward the other Paladins only to find the dock lined with crew members down on one knee, fists over their hearts in a salute, and heads bowed. His eyes roamed down the line of them and his heart actually ached, the part of him that was just a boy from Cuba feeling unworthy of this sort of display.

He pressed his lips into a thin line and then he smiled, marching down to the middle of them, facing them, and hitting the deck with one knee, his fist over his heart. There was some shuffling and mumbling from the crew before they accepted his pledge back to them, and Lance swept back up, completing the walk down to meet with his teammates.

“What the hell was _that_?” Pidge was still hoisting his flightsuit and boots in her grasp, but Shiro just looked immensely proud of him. Lance couldn’t meet his eyes for long—he felt like he’d cheated somehow.

~*~

The fact that he’d gotten a makeover apparently didn’t just wash over the others as he had been hoping it would. Even Krolia had a stake in it—“I think it’s an improvement, if a bit frivolous.”

The expanse of the tattoos hadn’t been discussed, but he was pretty sure that everyone knew they were… _extensive_. Hunk might have been the only one to ask about it all, though, “So how did all… _this_ happen?”

“All what?” He replied, you know, like he didn’t see what Hunk was gesturing at. He was eating breakfast at the table, back on the Castle, and everyone was present. Lance didn’t really want to talk about it, and after having thought enough about it back on the Kana, he was absolutely certain that he wasn’t going to just reveal to the team that he was ~~basically~~ a God now. He just didn’t feel confident enough in himself or his new-found abilities to defend _that_ stance. Especially using such a heavy-hitting word as that— _God_. He shoveled another bite of goo into his mouth as Hunk pursued the line of questioning.

“You know what. The tattoos, the piercings, the new haircut…” He wasn’t being overly aggressive about it, he was just asking about it as a friend would do if someone just up and changed their entire appearance at once. Especially considering Lance hadn’t changed shit in the years they’d known each other. Lance wanted to just keep stuffing his face with food and avoid answering that, but he had to say _something_.

Besides, even Keith (who had been conspicuously silent on the matter) was keeping an ear out for his explanation. He might as well give it when everyone could hear. He sighed and sat back in his chair, reaching up to run a hand through the longer hair on the top of his head, feeling it flop back like a wavy mop over his forehead again. “I don’t know man, it was hot as hell on that ship. I needed to cut off some of it at least, and this is what Klaz gave me.”

Pidge tapped him on the knuckles with her spoon, making Lance grimace. That had totally been covered in spit and goo. Disgusting. “Okay, but what about all these tats?”  
Lance shrugged, eyes falling down to the goo on his plate, “I woke up like this; I don’t know.”

Shiro was frowning and Allura was giving him an odd look, but Keith was the first to poke it, “You… woke up like that.” He glanced around at the others and then back at Lance, “I don’t think anyone is buying that.”

“Keith,” Shiro started, but didn’t get any further when the Paladin in question raised his voice.

“ _What_? We all know that’s bullshit! I’m just the only one willing to call him out on it.” He was gesticulating with his spoon in his grasp, which made his aggression only somewhat amusing rather than irritating the way it normally was. He probably could thank Sleif for that.

“He may not want to talk about it just yet. You need to respect his wishes. He’ll tell us when he’s ready to.” Shiro was always much more wise than he should have been at his age—oh yes, that was _definitely_ Sleif’s influence. Good to have him back, Lance guessed.

The part of him that was Sleif and all God wanted to just tell them and light up the place when they didn’t believe. Make them kneel before him—but Lance would never do that to his friends. His _family_. Instead, he just kept his eyes trained on his plate and continued to scoop goo up with his spoon. Eventually they all disbanded, thankfully having left the subject alone for now.

 

Back on the bridge later, Allura filled him in on everything he had missed. Seeing that storm from orbit made his feat of strength in shutting the whole thing down that much more impressive. He would have been bragging and flexing his muscles normally, but he kept his mouth shut tight. Once Shiro joined them, they went over everything that had happened to Lance when he had crashed. He figured his edited version passed the test, as he left out a good chunk in the middle, saying that he’d been knocked unconscious for a good portion of the storm and had been carried below deck to recover.

The rest of Lance’s day was full of dodging Coran and his wanting to complete a full body scan to check for any lasting damage by hiding out in Red. This ended up being a win-win situation, as he got plenty of time to come clean to his Lion: the one he truly wouldn’t have been able to lie to, regardless. It turned out that he didn’t even really _have_ to tell him, since Red had felt the change in him when he was down on the planet, when he’d first begun to remember everything.

So he spent the afternoon letting Red sift through his memories, and then made certain that they were on lock-down and wouldn’t be shared during any Voltron formation. He couldn’t have the team finding out like that. He knew he’d have to come clean eventually, but he just didn’t know how to broach that topic. Either way, Red vowed to keep that information to himself.

As Lance was heading back to his room for some more rest (Shiro had suggested it), he passed by the training rooms and stopped to watch Krolia and Keith working with Kosmo in tag-team against a gladiator. They were winning with ease. Lance admired the view for a moment, and then departed to his room for a good, long nap.

~*~

Lance wasn’t sure how long he slept, but he woke to the sounds of a quiet Castle. He was surprised to wake to nothing floating or glowing this time, and pinned it on finally being back with team Voltron. He felt safer now. This was probably only a break from the nightmares that triggered the weird occurrences he awoke to, but he was willing to roll with it for as long as it decided to go on for.

He stretched, changed into workout clothes, and set off for the training deck, wanting to blow off some steam before hitting the showers. Normally he took his bayard with him and did some target practice, but something in him was pulled toward a bo staff, looking typically Altean by having reinforced walls and containing something that glowed in the same aqua their armor was accented in. It would clash a little bit with his shades darker teal that he emitted, but he wasn’t worried about the aesthetics at the moment. Besides, he wasn’t here to glow.

He had exactly one moment between having called for the gladiator and the mechanical combatant dropping through the ceiling in which he could doubt his ability to use this weapon, but with a simple twirl in his left hand, all internal dispute was settled. He had to trust that he remembered how to wield this. And then he was working his way up the levels of gladiator, easily surpassing where he would have stopped before his excursion on Zirconia. By the time he made it up to the same level Krolia, Keith, and Kosmo had been working on last night, Lance had to admit that perhaps there was something to this whole being-a-God thing. He felt like he could have beat the level with one of his hands tied behind his back and been completely comfortable. Of course, he _did_ find that he was using not just his extensive knowledge of warfare, and his impressive strength (okay, so he was only marginally using this to augment what was already there), but he was figuring out how to control some of that floating thing he could do to other objects—except he was using it on himself, giving him some hang-time before he had to touch down onto the training deck floor. It shouldn’t have looked too strange, even on the cameras, but it was just enough to give him an advantage.

He was happily beating up the gladiator with his large stick, had shirked his shirt and had kicked his shoes off, finding himself happiest without the extra material between himself and the deck beneath him when the door slid open. He just merrily continued, launching himself into the gladiator with a renewed sense of vigor, using his staff to flick up and disarm his mechanical opponent, flourishing as he spun around his staff and crashed it against the gladiator’s head, causing the machine to crumple into the ground. Lance held it there, pinned by its head against the deck for a long moment before he stepped back, breathing hard with the exertion. Before the next level could kick off, he canceled the simulation, glancing over to see Hunk frowning at him.

“Hey, Hunk, my man!” Lance spoke between puffs of exhalation, but this only pulled Hunk’s frown deeper. Lance’s eyebrows knit together as he crossed the deck toward him, “What’s up? You want to train with me?”

“Nawh, man, I’m good. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with all of that.” Hunk looked troubled, and then motioned to the staff, “How’d you get so good with that, anyway?”

He glanced at the weapon held in his left hand and he shrugged, giving a sunny smile, “Practice, I guess.”

Hunk just nodded, but then he huffed and relaxed his stance, rubbing the back of his neck, “Sorry dude, it’s just that you came back all different… I just feel like I don’t really know you anymore.”

Lance’s head cocked and he opened his mouth to answer when the intercom went off. Neither of them even blinked before sprinting for the bridge, knowing well the signal to assemble. Lance almost left Hunk in the dust getting there, but he pulled up and patted Hunk on the back as he caught back up, “Come on, Hunk, we’re almost there.”

As they pulled up in the elevator, Lance punching the button as they waited inside for the tube to travel to the appropriate level, Hunk bent over and breathed heavily. “You mean—” _gasp_ , “we’re almost—” _puff_ , “to the lift.”

The elevator dinged and the door slid open, letting Lance change from dancing from foot to foot to charging out, pausing to reach back and yank Hunk out with him. A squawk was all he heard as he dragged his friend along with him, only stopping as they reached the bridge, showing that Krolia, Keith, and Allura were the only other ones up there so far. Coran came skidding in on their heels and Shiro was just behind, already dressed in his black Paladin armor. Pidge trailed in with a tablet tucked against her chest, barely looking up as she joined them.

“Paladins, we have a distress signal coming from a nearby system. I know we were going to give it a couple of days of recovery before heading back out there, but it seems that this planet has attracted the Galra’s attention. We will be receiving some support from the Blade, but they will primarily be fighting on the ground while Voltron handles the fighters.” Allura looked apologetic, but Lance was totally okay with the action. “We will have a couple of vargas of flight time before we arrive, but once we’re there, you will be expected to be out in your Lions.”

Well, at least he would be able to take a shower. He cast a glance at the other Paladins, catching Keith’s eyes roving over his chest—ah, the tattoos. They must really be bugging him. Keith jerked his gaze away once he realized he’d been caught, and Lance just adjusted the staff to rest against the inside of his foot, wrapping a forearm around it and leaning over onto it. He raised his eyebrows suggestively at Keith and barely stifled a snicker when Keith flipped him off.

“Alright Paladins, you’re dismissed for now, we will meet up in one and one half vargas to go over tactics. Be dressed appropriately.” Shiro commented, letting his eyes flick over to Lance, who gave him a mock salute in return.

Then Lance turned, intending on yanking Hunk along with him to finish their conversation only to find the engineer had forsaken him in favor of catching up with Pidge, traipsing off the bridge in her wake, discussing something or another that he wouldn’t understand. He scowled maybe just a little bit at being left out, regardless of his ability to help with it. A warmth near his right side alerted him, and he turned, slightly startled, toward Keith who was considering him with his arms crossed over his chest. “Since when do you use a staff?”

Lance gave a shrug and tipped his head to the side, “Figured it would be smart to practice with different weapons. You know, just in case.” Then he gave a wicked grin, “’Sides, you don’t seem to mind it.”

He gave a roguish wink, watching in fascination as a frown settled on Keith’s lips. Huh. Normally he’d give more of a reaction. Lance jerked when a hand settled on his forearm, Keith’s thumb swiping over the skin there as he took a closer look at the tattoos. Keith only snatched his hand back when he met Lance’s evaluating gaze. After a lull, the half-Galran muttered, “They suit you.”

Lance would have come up with something to make Keith embarrassed by his remark, but the other had already spun on his heel, leaving the bridge with Kosmo in no time flat. Lance sighed as the door slid shut behind him and straightened himself up, kicking the staff up into a comfortable carrying position as he headed back toward the training deck. He desperately needed a shower.

“Wait, Number Three! I’d like to scan you—” Coran was calling after him, but he sped up and let the elevator door slide shut before the other man could catch up to him. He gave a sigh of relief, leaning back against the wall of the tube and inspecting his nails as he escaped yet again. He had no idea what the scans would show, just that it probably wasn’t a wise idea to have them done just yet if he wanted to keep this all to himself.


	6. Hold Back the River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith share some banana chips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this update took 5ever--end of semester papers and projects obliterated me. However, I'm back! I still plan to keep updating this, and I certainly hope my updates will become somewhat regular over the summer.

**“I consider the sound of the sea to be part of my body.” - Derek Walcott**

As he stormed down the hatch of Red, Lance ditched his helmet and began peeling off the layer of armor that covered his flightsuit. Angrily, he tossed the offending armor off of himself and into a pile he knew well enough he would have to clean up after he’d had a chance to cool down. He frowned at himself and felt more so than saw his eyes flicker before he clamped them shut, taking a deep calming breath and then jerking them open when the hangar’s door hissed open.

“You coming, Lance?” Pidge peeked around the edge of the door, gesturing toward the bridge where they were sure to be debriefing in just a few minutes. Lance’s shoulders slumped and he nodded, waving her off.

“Gimme a minute to change. I’ll be right there.” He even _sounded_ defeated. They’d won: no one had been seriously injured, and the Galra were once again running away from Voltron. He should be counting this as a win. Only, he had stupidly let his new powers get away from him, and instead of using them responsibly and not just letting loose with them, he had burst a water pipe, the water from it becoming a pressure weapon that had chased away the guards.

Perhaps he should back up and remind himself that nothing of the sort would have happened if he hadn’t pushed to be the one to assist Pidge with an on-the-spot recon mission when a Cruiser showed up. Really, all this was Pidge’s fault—no, he couldn’t put the blame on her if she had no idea what he was capable of. Besides, he didn’t have to volunteer as her support. Keith would have been the better choice with his hand-to-hand combat approach. Not that Lance _couldn’t_ do that… Especially now.

He stripped himself of the flight suit and redressed in his normal outfit since returning from Zirconia—the dark blue pants he’d acquired there, some sandals he’d picked up at a space mall a while back and had never really had the occasion to wear, and a silver-grey t-shirt that hung a bit looser on his frame than the one he’d left Earth in. He’d found it in one of the unused room’s closets and had appropriated it. He raked a hand through his helmet hair and then left for the bridge, keeping all self-deprecating comments to himself.

“Congratulations, Paladins, we’ve successfully defended the Baelids! The Galra have cleared completely out of this planetary system, which is good news.” Allura announced as Lance slid onto one of the stairs between where Hunk was splayed out and where Keith was leaning against the wall. “In addition, we’ve not only reaffirmed their position as allies in the coalition, but they’ve given us a lead to another powerful ally that may be nearby.”

Lance’s eyebrows raised and Shiro stepped up, hands on his hips as he addressed them, “According to the Baelids, there is a planet in a system close by that is rumored to—well, the words they used were—that is…” Shiro raised his human hand to scrub at the back of his neck. Just as Pidge was getting ready to tell him to spit it out, he finally managed to say it, “Apparently ‘Gods walk among men.’”

Lance blinked and then his gaze dropped to his hands, clasped in front of him. He breathed evenly as his heartbeat thundered in his ears and his mind raced with a million questions. He didn’t even realize that everyone had been dismissed until Hunk was looking back at him with a puzzled look on his face, “You okay, buddy?”

Lance stood abruptly, hands falling to his sides, and he thought that if he could just make it to his room, everything would be okay. He would be able to think and let go of all the stress he was carrying. Hunk caught his arm, but Lance tore it from his grasp and grit out between clenched teeth, “Not now, Hunk.”

Sleif felt like he was trying to let loose a hurricane on board the Castle, and Lance didn’t want any of that getting out. So he bustled out of the bridge, ignoring the hurt look that crossed Hunk’s face as he tromped away. He managed to get all the way to his room, closed the door behind himself, and found that he was in no mood to sit on his bed and just think things over, so he went where he knew he’d be able to unwind—stepping into the shower felt like the release of all the tension that had been building up.

Lance marveled at how the water danced with just a flick of a finger, spinning droplets into more cohesive globs, and spinning those globs into tiny planetary systems. He made one that mimicked the Milky Way galaxy, and then melted it down to Earth’s home system, each planet orbiting as he’d been taught, all the way out to Kerberos. It relaxed him in a way nothing else ever had, and he found himself sinking down to sit on the floor of the shower pod, watching the little watery planets orbit a watery sun.

~*~

He lurched upward, a cry spilling from his lips as he scrambled back against the headboard, a hand outstretched in front of him, palm out, as if to stop some sort of attack. He ducked his head down, hearing something crash against the wall just next to where his ear had been a split tick ago. His shoulders shook as he was wracked with terrified sobs that tore themselves from his throat, and he only jerked back further as more items swirled around him. The room was lit with a teal glow, and Lance could see his personal items spinning in a maelstrom around the room, acting more like there was a tempest throwing them around rather than him having lost control of his powers. His outstretched hand trembled, the adrenaline rushing through his veins and making his muscles freeze up. His door hissed to open and it scared him enough that everything around him halted abruptly. The teal, swirling glow of his God-marks went out, everything fell down to the floor, his jacket flopping down on top of his head and making him squeak, momentarily fighting it before he tossed it off of himself and managed to retreat into the corner where his bed met the wall.

He was still breathing hard, tears drying on his cheeks when he looked up to the shocked expression on Keith’s face. There was a beat of silence and then the Red Paladin made a hand gesture at his side and spoke with a firm voice, “Stay.”

He quickly skirted the items strewn across the floor and left the door to slide back closed, Kosmo whining on just the other side of it. Lance couldn’t even form words, he just scrunched further into the corner, apologies already falling from his lips, “I’m sorry, oh gods, Keith I’m so sorry. I must have been so loud and—I’ll move! I promise, I’ll be quiet for the rest of the night and then—”

Keith ignored his babbling and brushed aside the hands that Lance put up in defense, and somehow reached around Lance and pulled him in close, crushing him against his chest. Lance froze, and between the scent of Keith’s soap and the absurd circumstances, he was half-laughing and half-crying within the next breath, sounding absolutely psychotic. His hands curled around to grip at Keith’s worn and faded black t-shirt. He knew he was babbling nonsense into the curve of his neck, hot tears dampening the collar of the shirt he kept ducking to shove his face against. Soothing sounds filtered past his own, and he found himself calming—the panic subsiding—as hands smoothed through his hair, brushed over his back and ran down his sides. Before he knew it he was fighting to keep his eyelids open, but Keith had sunk to the side and was rocking him gently, and Lance just couldn’t do anything more than twine his fingers into the material of Keith’s clothes, trying to keep him from leaving him.

 

The next time he woke, the room was a mess and there was a wolf on the bed. Kosmo had apparently gotten sick and tired of having to wait in the cold hallway and had let himself in and helped himself to a good portion of the bed that wasn’t currently occupied. Lance’s limbs were tangled up in Keith’s and the Red Paladin was propped up against the wall, Lance was cradled across his lap at a three-quarter angle that couldn’t have been comfortable for either of them, but somehow had been conducive to sleep last night.

The wreckage that had been wrought from his nightmares was still evident around the room, though Lance was pleasantly surprised to find his blanket was pulled up partway over him and a pillow had been bunched up under his head. He shifted, his fingers stiff as they finally released their death grip on the fabric they had been entangled in. Keith made a small sound of discontent in his sleep, and then shifted, his eyebrows scrunching. Lance tried to move, withdraw, and possibly even sneak out of his own room, but it seemed as though that wasn’t on the table. Kosmo whipped around as soon as he started to move, and instantly pounced upon seeing he was awake. Before he could stop it from happening, they both were being crushed by a space wolf that thought he was a lap dog, shoving himself on top of Lance and squishing him at an awkward angle onto Keith. The bastard could probably actually breathe, thanks to his torso not currently being crushed.

Keith groaned and yanked a hand out from under Kosmo before he opened his eyes and growled out something that sounded suspiciously like “bed hog” before he shifted and set his hand back down—onto Lance’s thigh. Lance’s breath caught and he watched Keith’s face as his eyes slid shut once more. Keith’s nose wrinkled and he took a moment before he huffed and sigh and opened his eyes once more, meeting Lance’s own, “Is this going to be one of your angry reactions where you push me away and pretend this never happened, or—”

Lance puffed a laugh that sounded more like a wheeze from under Kosmo, and then he shook his head, “Somehow I don’t think you’d let me get away with that,” Then, with a pensive expression, “Wait, is that in reference to the supposed bonding moment? Because I honestly don’t—”

Keith was chuckling, head ducked and eyes squeezed mostly shut, a flash of white teeth beneath lips that curved up at the edges. He was _smiling_. Lance hated to ruin the mood, but he was honest-to-Dad having a hard time breathing in at all, so he wriggled himself into a more upright position. Keith’s laugh cut off in a thick swallow and then a sharp inhale which had Lance’s head turning back toward him, “Sorry, I couldn’t breathe.”

The Red Paladin just shifted himself, somehow squirming enough to get his other hand out from under Lance’s back, awkwardly hovering it in the air, trying to put it back against the wall before realizing there wasn’t any room, and then sighing and reaching over to smack lightly at the oafish wolf happily laying on top of them. “No, it’s fine—jeez Kosmo, couldn’t have picked another spot on the bed?”

It was Lance’s turn to chortle, enjoying the innocent look Kosmo tossed at the two of them before he moved again, leaning even more heavily into Lance as he curled around to chew at an itch on his hind limb. Simultaneous sounds of dismay left the paladins mouths at the sudden change of pressure. It took a moment before Kosmo settled back to his original position and Keith breathed a slow exhale before bringing up the subject.

“So last night…” Keith was trying to talk to him, but wasn’t even trying to meet his eyes, instead watching Kosmo lick his paw, “does that—I mean, is it a frequent thing?”

Lance considered how to answer it, and to give himself time to make a decision, he joked, “Are you talking about the spontaneous river of tears, a night full of cuddling someone you never thought you’d be so physically close to, or the horrendous, never-ending nightmares?” He stole a glance away from Kosmo, whom he was now watching as though the wolf was the subject of a particularly fascinating documentary, and met Keith’s eyes for a grand total of a split tick before he was giving his actual answer, “I don’t know what you want me to say—once every couple of days? It used to be every night, but it’s gotten better.”

Keith was watching him now, and Lance was doing everything he could to not meet his probing gaze. There was a heavy pause before Keith poked for further information, “Does anyone know? Hunk? Pidge?”

Lance shook his head, raising a hand to examine his nails. He knew they were perfect, but he imagined some sort of imperfection in order to keep him somewhat busy, picking at his index finger’s nail with his thumb of the same hand. Keith pressed on, “Have you thought about talking to someone—I mean, Shiro might be able to help.”

Lance offered a thin, watery smile in exchange for that tidbit. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather not put more on his shoulders.”

Keith nodded, head ducking as he thought. Lance sighed and looked over at Keith, “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I’ve got this. As I said, it’s getting better—”

“What I saw last night, and by the looks of your room this morning, this isn’t better, Lance. Whatever is bothering you… you _need_ to do something about it.” Keith’s words were firm, and if Lance wasn’t currently still being somewhat cradled in his lap, he might not have listened and brushed it off with angry words. Whether it was the physical connection to him or what had happened last night—maybe it was Sleif, for all he knew—but Lance took it in, chewed on it a bit, and finally nodded.

“You’re probably right.” With his admission the two of them fell into a comfortable silence, watching Kosmo for a lull. Then, with little hesitation, Lance opened up to Keith. Not about everything, mind you, and certainly not about the whole being a God of the Sea thing, but about the nightmares. About how he’d technically died and then came back because Allura brought him back. He told Keith about the fact that losing him to the Blade had hurt, and that not having something— _someone_ —there to help take the weight, the gravity, of what had happened to him off, he’d just sort of internalized it all. He knew what he needed to do, and that he hadn’t done it in the wake of what had happened, but he also knew he was a fallible human. Or… he _had_ been, at any rate. And now he just couldn’t afford to let this keep consuming him every night.

~*~

Unintentionally, Hunk and Lance drifted further apart over the next few days while Allura, Shiro, and Coran worked on finding this planet where Gods walked among men. Lance was against looking to this planet for help, torn between wanting to find out if it was really real and terrified at being found out. He couldn’t take the thought of it, let alone being involved in helping to get them there, so he retreated, finding solace in sparring either with the Guardian or with Keith these days. Usually he would seek out Pidge to play mindless video games with, but she was busy working on some program thing that kept both her and Hunk occupied. Otherwise Lance would have pursued Hunk and his culinary experiments—but either Hunk was off with Pidge or Lance was making an ass of himself. Either way, their exchanges these days were limited to furtive glances at one another and nods in greeting.

The unexpected result of confiding in Keith, meanwhile, was one that had the two of them sparring together much more often and otherwise finding each other during down time. At one point Lance even ended up sprawled out on the floor with Kosmo, rolling around and playfully wrestling him for a plushy toy that Keith had been disappointed in Lance finding and giving to the wolf to play with. “He’s a wolf, Lance, not a dog.”

Regardless, that was how Lance found himself freshly showered after a tiring sparring session with the Guardian, toting a tablet of Altean Folklore in one hand and a bag of what passed as banana chips in the other, sinking into the couch in the seat next to Keith. Giving Keith the chips, he nabbed a pillow and wedged it between the two of them before he swung himself around and planted his head on the pillow that was now at a comfortable angle with Keith’s thigh supporting it. He hefted his tablet up against his bent knees and tapped at the screen to get back to the page he had been on.

“Whatchyou reading?” Keith managed between mouthfuls of chips, and Lance tipped his head back enough to meet his eyes.

“Ah, just some old wive’s tales from Altea.” He answered breezily, raising his eyebrows and pointedly watching Keith’s hand with a couple of chips in it. Keith’s eyebrows knit together, but his hand stopped and he changed its destination, hand-feeding Lance the chips. Lance was chewing happily when Keith questioned him.

“You can read Altean?” He didn’t seem disbelieving, just surprised. Lance gave a partial shrug and swallowed his mouthful before answering.

“Sure. It took a bit of practice, but I think I get most of it.”

Keith’s eyebrows raised, but he said nothing for a moment, shifting and getting more comfortable so he could see the tablet’s screen as well. “So what story are you reading right now?”

Lance grinned and began regaling him on the story of a Demi-god who swam with the fish, saving the ocean from over-fishing and pollution. Lance was reading to Keith when the door hissed open, disrupting Kosmo’s nap and the story as everyone else on board the Castle poured into the room.

“This is where you guys have been—are you _cuddling_? Gross.” Pidge was always so loud, and Lance almost tossed her a look full of daggers, but Allura’s hands on her hips and Shiro’s expression told Lance that this was actually somewhat important. He sat up, letting the tablet fall into his lap as he swiveled to look at the group.

“It’s good to see the two of you truly bonding,” Coran started, but Allura steamrolled right over anything else he might have said by giving her announcement.

“We’ve found the planet. I’ve already plotted the course, and it should take us another fifteen vargas before we reach it. By then you should all be well-rested, have eaten, and are dressed in your armor. We will be negotiating a treaty, with any luck, and I implore you all to be on your best behavior.” Her words weren’t ones to argue with, and normally Lance wouldn’t have, but he’d been half-hoping they would never find this planet, let alone be there so soon. He opened his mouth to question the wisdom of attempting to negotiate with Gods when Hunk, surprisingly, spoke up.

“Princess, I don’t mean to question you… but are we sure this is—” Hunk was cut off by Allura, the muscle in her jaw ticking momentarily and her eyes narrowing.

“Then don’t question me. This is a wise course of action. Besides, the Baelids would not have suggested such an alliance if they didn’t think us capable of achieving it.”

Pidge and Hunk exchanged looks and then Hunk nodded at Allura in a tight way that spoke of his trepidation. Lance hadn’t been expecting that, but he was behind it. Still, Allura gave no quarter, and it looked as though Shiro had already had that discussion with her and hadn’t gotten anywhere with it. Lance felt all the relaxation he’d achieved over the past few days go right out the window. This was going to suck.


End file.
